POLITICAL FIGURES

Benito Mussolini - Born in 1883 and died in 1945. He replaced Italy’s democratic government and founded the Italian Fascist Party in 1919

• In 1939 Mussolini became friendly with Nazi Germany
• Increasing co-operation with Nazi Germany lead the ‘Pact of Steel’ in 1939.
• Influenced by Hitler, Mussolini began to introduce anti-Jewish legislations in Italy.
• Greco-Italian war: 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941
• Hitler warned Mussolini against attacking and was furious when he disobeyed because Hitler had to postpone the attack of USSR by weeks to help him.
• The Greek Army counter-attacked, forcing the Italians to retreat and by mid-December, the Greeks occupied nearly a quarter of Albania, tying down 530,000 Italian troops. In March 1941, a major Italian counter-attack failed. In the first days of April the Germans attacked Greece and the Italian army resumed its attacks while the Greek Army retreated. On 20 April, the Greek army surrendered to the Germans, and on 23 April 1941 the armistice was repeated including the Italians, ending the Greco-Italian war.

Emanuele Grazzi - responsible for presenting the ultimatum of Mussolini to the Greek Prime Minister, Ioannis Metaxes.
This ultimatum was presented to Metaxas in Greece on October 28, 1940, at dawn (04:00 AM), after a party in the German embassy in Athens. In it, Grazzi demanded that Greece allow the Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy "strategic locations" or otherwise face war. Metaxes replied with the answer no and so in response to his refusal, Italian troops were stationed in Albania and attacked the Greek border at 05:30 AM. This was when Greece joined WWII

Ioannis Metaxas – a Greek general appointed Minister of Greece
Metaxas tried to keep Greece out of World War II but this was made impossible when Grazzi sent an ultimatum from Mussolini demanding occupational rights in Greece. Metaxas replied with "Alors, c'est la guerre" ("then it is war").

Axis Powers
The Axis Powers is a military alliance between Germany (Adolf Hitler), Italy (Benito Mussolini) and Japan (Tojo Hideki). It was officially founded in September 1940 with the signing of the Tripartite Pact. The minor Axis countries were Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Its goals were to achieve immense expansion through aggressive warfare and to destroy Soviet Communism.

Pact of Steel
The ‘Pact of Steel’ is an alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy signed on May 22, 1939 in Berlin. This Pact was made with the assumption that a war would break out in next few years. The Pact consisted of two parts;

• continuing trust and cooperation between Italy and Germany
• a joint military and economic policy. The Pact of Steel meant that Germany or Italy were obligated to aid the other country in the event of war being declared. They also had to collaborate in military and wartime production. To make peace, any of the countries needed the agreement of the other.